the future of motor oil?

> wrote
> I didn't mean to quote CR as gospel, only that it was consistent with
> other findings. They have shown abysmal testing ideas on occasion, I
> agree. The "jerk the wheel, slam on the brakes, and let everything go"
> testing procedure on a '78 Horizon/Omni sent the car careening down the
> test track with the wheels bouncing from lock to lock by themselves.
> They downgraded the car as "too sensitive" for our roads. Funny thing
> is, it was later found that most cars have this reaction to such
> bizarre treatment which they concocted for this test. I had one of
> these for several years, and the handling was the only thing Chrysler
> DIDN'T fail on!
>
> The lack of start-ups is the the weakest part of CR's test in '96.
> Never the less, they did help show that for stop 'n go driving in
> average temperatures, synthetic didn't bring much to the table despite
> the added costs.

In 1996, CR ended up having data on only one engine for the synthetic oil.
They changed this engine's synthetic oil every 12k miles. The other engines
tested had ordinary engine oil, changed at intervals of 3k miles or 6k
miles. Data was taken until all engines had 60k miles on them. The comments
on the synth oil:

"The [engine with synthetic oil] fared no worse than the three whose oil had
been changed at 6000-mile intervals."

In its recommendations, CR said, "Even the expensive synthetics... worked no
better than conventional motor oils in our taxi tests, but they're worth
considering for extreme driving conditions--high ambient temperatures and
high engine load or very cold temperatures."

This recommendation does not quite make sense to me. If one has to change
synthetic oil half as often as conventional oil, then one is likely saving
money.

> If synthetic brought any dramatic improvement, the
> oil manufacturers would stop selling synthetic like snake oil, and
> would show us meaningful quantitative data and photos.

I think it's out there. Many a driver here, for example, is using synthetic
and changing comfortably at a much higher interval than with conventional
oil.

It's not proof positive. But I've read enough that I'm convinced synthetic
is a good way to go for a new car and possibly some older cars.